METROichel Barnier announced new negotiations for ” improve “ the pension reform of 2023, but, although the specific working conditions of employees are a determining element for their acceptance or refusal to continue working after the age of sixty, this crucial issue seems out of reach.
In the finance bill for 2025, the government also proposes cutting the budget of the National Agency for the Improvement of Working Conditions by 25% without provoking particular reactions.
Does this mean that work has generally become easier than in the 1970s, when struggles against “alienating” work, against “infernal speeds,” mobilized unions and intellectuals?
Our field research in various sectors of activity shows, on the contrary, that working conditions are deteriorating considerably, in particular due to greater control and surveillance of work through new technologies. Situation that influences the psychological and physical state of employees. Having the means to do quality work is, in fact, a proven factor in psychological well-being; Workers with significant autonomy also have better overall health.
a necessary evil
However, we see that Taylorism has left factories alone, spreading to the service sector, and that the “lean management” that sometimes replaces it has even more disastrous consequences.
In call centers, managers record and monitor the duration of each call in real time.
In logistics warehouses, operators scan all products and are in constant communication with voice robots to whom they report each of their gestures. Some of them continue this mechanical dialogue even at night, talking in their sleep.
Many other activities – some skilled and public sector – are affected. Many teleworkers monitor their activity remotely, with tools that count, for example, the number of clicks of their mouse.
IT developers are increasingly forced to plan their activities in advance and in detail, sometimes inventing false tasks to give themselves time to breathe and reflect, essential conditions for innovation. Teacher-researchers are not spared and owe their careers to the number of publications in journals “starry”the only element valued by international rankings.
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